Are You Unknowingly Telling Your Wife She Is Not Beautiful Enough?
Are You Unknowingly Telling Your Wife She Is Not Beautiful Enough?
By Bradley Bennett
You may not be saying it with your words, but it’s still being communicated.
To your wife, it’s not your words that matter. There’s something else speaking more loudly than they ever could.
Let me explain.
Just the other night, Amanda and I were out and we noticed another young couple sitting a few tables away from us. They were clearly on a date. She was all dolled up and he was looking presentable.
They were smiling and talking to each other when another woman walked by. Both of them looked over but the guy’s eyes lingered and it was clear his wife noticed.
She didn’t get angry, didn’t raise her voice, but I could see her shoulders drop a little bit. Here she was, all dolled up for a date and her husband was telling her, with his eyes, that he found something else more beautiful.
He didn’t say anything with his words, but he didn’t have too. His eyes gave her a peek into what was happening in his heart.
Our Eyes Are Windows Into Our Soul
There’s a famous proverb that says,
“the eyes are the windows to the soul.”
I believe there is truth in this. What we look at, or focus on, is usually determined by what’s going on in our heart.
This is why our eyes communicate so much to our wife.
I’ve realized that when I’m loose with my eyes and look at other women lustfully, I’m making a strong statement to Amanda. I’m telling her that she’s not beautiful enough for me and my heart desires something else.
When I realized I was communicating this to her, it broke my heart.
I would never say those things to her with my words, so why would I ever say them with my eyes?
You see, lusting with our eyes doesn’t come from a place of honor but of dissatisfaction and sin. It’s a sign that, in our heart, our wife is not the ultimate “standard of beauty”.
Let’s park it here for a second and explore what this means.
Your Standard For Beauty
We each have a “standard” that we hold to be most beautiful, even if we’re not conscious of it. For many of us, our standard has been set by the culture around us with things like advertisements, movies, magazines, and especially pornography.
Once this standard is set, knowingly or unknowingly, we will begin to desire things that match it.
When our eyes are drawn to these things, we are communicating to our wife that she doesn’t measure up to our standard of beauty. That there’s something else we desire more.
What if we decided to flip the script and make our wife our standard for beauty? To tell her, with our eyes, that she is the most beautiful person in the world.
It comes down to a choice we get to make.
Will we remain passive in our pursuit of our wife and let outside forces determine our standard for beauty, or will we become proactive and declare that no one measures up to the beauty of our bride?
Guarding Our Eyes
Being proactive requires that we take control of our eyes first and foremost. Refusing to be passive, choosing to be intentional, knowing what we focus on will ultimately affect our heart.
At the end of the day, we will reap in our heart what we sow with our eyes.
When our eyes are left uncontrolled, they can sow dissatisfaction with our wife into our heart. This eventually spills over into our marriage as we begin to search for satisfaction in other places.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus spoke about the power our eyes have to influence our heart,
“The eye is the light of the body. If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is bad, your whole body will be dark. If the light in you is dark, how dark it will be!” ~Matthew 6:20-22
As this verse shows, guarding our eyes goes beyond just not looking at other women around our wife. In order to have eyes only for our wife, we must be careful about what they behold at all times.
The world will whisper and try to tell you that you can’t possibly be satisfied with your wife. See it for the lie it is. Focus your eyes on your wife’s beauty and you will be fully satisfied with her alone.
When I started guarding my eyes in all situations, I noticed a marked difference in my desire for Amanda. Her beauty increased the more I focused on and beheld it.
She became my standard for beauty and none compared to her!
I’m not going to sit here and say this is easy. It’s one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in my life.
The world throws things at us all day that seek draw our eyes. For many of us, we’ve built a habit of giving into that temptation. And if you are like me, then you may need a practical way to begin breaking that habit.
My solution was to begin “bouncing” my eyes.
Using The Bounce Technique
This is a pretty simple concept, but it works really well. Whenever you see something that makes you want to linger or re-look, just “bounce” your eyes away.
Look away, close the browser, slam the book shut, throw your laptop out the window. Anything to definitively take your eyes away from it.
Doing this trains your eyes to not linger on something you don’t want. It may seem dramatic at first, but our eyes have been conditioned by years of being left unguarded. We need to break that habit and retrain them to “bounce” instead of lingering.
The power comes from having the decision made ahead of time. There’s no confusion about what is going to happen. Instead of arguing with yourself in the middle of temptation, you already know the plan. You’re going to bounce!
What Do You Want Your Eyes To Communicate?
Husbands, our eyes tell the full story to our wife. With one glance they tell her whether she is our standard for beauty or if it’s something else.
Are your eyes telling your wife what you want them too?
For many of us, myself included, they aren’t always. We may not realize it, but our eyes are telling her that she is not beautiful enough for us.
We can change that though, by committing to guard our eyes. Refusing to stand passively by as the world tries to tell us our wife is not enough. Instead, we can declare, with our eyes, that she is more than enough for us.
Doing this turns our heart towards our wife and she becomes even more beautiful with each passing day. The more we focus on her beauty the more it grows. This is one of the most profound mysteries of marriage.
Let us be men who are proactive in pursuing our wife with our eyes. Who are so infatuated with her that no other woman can ever compare.
Let us have eyes that speak life over our bride and declare she is our standard for beauty. Always telling her that she is the one we find to be most beautiful.